Irving v. Lipstadt

Transcripts

1A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
We had better look up exactly what he said. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is that not the sense of what he is saying? 3A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
I do not accept your version of it. I think we need to be 4exact here. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is the whole burden of what Hitler and Ribbentrop have 6been saying to Horthy, you have a security problem, we are 7worried that you are going to break out of the alliance? 8A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
Back to Horthy, no. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
The Jews are the biggest problem? 10A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
No, I do not think they said anything about a security 11problem unless you can point me to it. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
I am going to produce those documents to the court when we 13go back to the transcript. But is it not true? 14A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
The Reichs Foreign Minister replied that the Jews must 15either be annihilated or taken to concentration camps. 16There was no other way. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
That is right. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you give the reference for that? 19A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
Page 441, my Lord, of my report. 20MR IRVING: Is Ribbentrop in effect saying you have to lock 21them up as we demand because the only other thing you 22could do is with them is to kill them? 23A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
No, he is not. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
What is the difference? 25A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
He is not saying, lock them up or we will kill them. He 26is saying they must either be annihilated or taken to

. P-151

1concentration camps. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Tell me the difference between those two statements. 3A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
The first one, lock them up or we will kill them, says it 4is putting primacy, the emphasis on locking them up. The 5second one gives them two equal statuses and does not say 6anything about what is happen to them in the concentration 7camps. The words "lock them up" does not occur there. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it not possible, lock them away, put them in 9concentration camps? 10A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
No, it does not occur, not in what he says. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is this not a perfectly feasible and reasonable 12explanation of the force that was applied to Horthy on 13that day, saying in blunt terms: You are going to have 14lock them away because, look, the only other thing you 15could do is kill them? 16A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
Not at all. We are back on Horthy, all right. It is not 17at all what he says. Let us go through this all over 18again. Pages 441 to 442 of my report. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just a second. 20MR IRVING: I do not think we need to go through it all again. 21A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
Horthy says, "what should he with the Jews after he had 22pretty well taken all means of living from them - he 23surely couldn't beat them to death - The Reich Foreign 24Minister replied that the Jews must either be annihilated 25or taken to concentration camps. There was no other way." 26 Hitler then says yes, "Where the Jews are left

. P-152

1to themselves, as for example i Poland, gruesome poverty 2and degeneracy had ruled. They were just pure parasites. 3One had fundamentally cleared up this state of affairs in 4Poland. If the Jews there did not want to work, they were 5shot. If they could not work, they had to perish. They 6had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli, from which a 7healthy body could be infected. That was not cruel", 8Hitler goes on, "if one remembered that even innocent 9natural creatures like hares and deer had to be killed so 10that no harm was caused. Why should one spare the beasts 11who wanted to bring us Bolshevism any more? Nations who 12did not rid themselves of Jews perished". 13 That seems to be extremely open about what is to 14happen to the Jews whom Hitler and Ribbentrop want Horthy 15to deliver from Hungary over to their tender mercies. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
I must protest against this wasting of the time of the 17court reading out time after time after time paragraphs 18that we have already heard. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, that is simply not fair, is it? 20We were on Ribbentrop's knowledge and you suggested that 21the first he knew was ---- 22MR IRVING: A perfectly reasonable explanation. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: -- in 1944 when Maidonek surfaced, to which 24the witness, as I recall, replied no, it was obvious to 25Ribbentrop what was going on back in 1942 and he cited 26Horthy. That was why it all arose.

. P-153

1MR IRVING: I agree, and I put to him, not realising we were 2letting ourselves in for another torrent of quotations 3from his own report, page after page after page. 4A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
It is a quotation from Hitler, Mr Irving. I know you do 5not want to hear Hitler saying the Jews have to be 6killed. That is why you want to shut me up, is it not? 7MR IRVING: A perfectly reasonable interpretation on the words 8that were used by Hitler and Ribbentrop to Horthy, which 9is to say, we are demanding you lock up all your Jews 10because of the security threat, which I shall establish to 11the court with the documents, and the only other thing you 12could do is kill them. In other words, you have no choice 13but to lock them up. 14A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
I think that is a perverted and distorted interpretation 15which you are putting on this document in a completely 16illegitimate way in order to try and bolster up your 17totally untenable view that Hitler did not want the Jews 18killed and did not know about it. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us move on. 20MR IRVING: Professor Evans, we are thoroughly familiar with 21the fact that you do not like me but there is no need to 22keep on expressing it again and again and again. 23A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
I have no personal feelings towards you one way or the 24other, Mr Irving. 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we all perhaps calm it a little bit and 26move on to the next topic. We have dealt with the

. P-154

1Adjutants. What are you wanting to ask about now? 2MR IRVING: We are dealing just with two tail end questions on 3the Horthy business. At page 441, footnote 7, you say 4that Paul Schmidt self serving memoirs are unreliable. 5Are memoirs sometimes unreliable when you so choose? 6A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
No, I am not using them. It is just a little note. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: The answer to that question must be yes. 8What is the next question? 9A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
Yes. 10MR IRVING: Thank you very much, my Lord. 11A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
It is not an important note. 12MR IRVING: Is a historian who researches, unlike yourself, 13both in the German but also in the Hungarian state files, 14and who finds in Hungarian state files no explicit 15reference to any discussion of killing at this Hitler 16Horthy meeting entitled therefore to assume that this did 17not bulk very large on that horizon? 18A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
No. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
At page 451 you talk in paragraph 14 about the effect of 20the bombing raids, in view of the fact that he had 21dismissed them as unimportant, it is highly unlikely that 22these bombing raids roused Hitler to an unprecedented 23anti-Semitic fury. Are you an expert on the bombing war 24as well then? 25A.
[Professor Richard John Evans]
Mr Irving, I have already said that I have a general level 26of expertise on the Third Reich and the Second World War,